- [Announcer] Montana Ag Live is made possible by the Montana Department of Agriculture, MSU Extension, the MSU Ag Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture, the Montana Wheat & Barley Committee, Cashman Nursery & Landscaping, the Gallatin Gardeners Club, and the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs.

(rousing music) - You are watching another new edition of Montana Ag Live, originating today from the studios of KUSM on the very dynamic and exciting campus of Montana State University, and coming to you over your Montana Public Television System.

Hey, I'm Jack Riesselman, long retired professor of plant pathology.

Happy to be your host this evening.

Those of you who have watched the program in the past have a pretty good idea of how it works.

You provide the questions, and this very knowledgeable panel will provide the answers tonight.

So don't be bashful.

You may not be the only one that's curious about the question you phone in.

Everybody else watching the program often really learns from the questions that you provide.

So with that, let me introduce tonight's panel.

Way to my left is Uta McKelvy.

Uta is a extension plant pathologist here.

This time of year, we have a lot of questions how to prevent diseases next year.

So if you have any questions about issues you had this year, you can ask her tonight and then you won't have 'em next year, guaranteed, right?

- Guaranteed.

- Okay.

Andrea Sarchet.

Andrea is a food safety specialist with the Montana Department of Agriculture.

And I'll say this right now, the Department of Agriculture has so many innovative programs.

If you ever wanna find out what they really do, go online, Google Montana Department of Agriculture, and you'll be impressed by the number of very successful programs they have, including food safety.

So we'll get into that this evening.

I think a lot of you recognize Shelley Mills.

Shelley is Valley County agents.

I've always said, "Get out of your zip code once in a while."

And I tell you what, Glasgow is a long way from Missoula, but if you live in Missoula, you ought to visit Glasgow at least once in your life because it's a beautiful little town along the highline of Montana.

Shelley, thank you for coming in tonight.

And of course, Abi Saeed.

Abi is our horticulturalist, and we always have lots of horticulture questions, and we have one that we have numerous questions on and we'll get to it very early in the program, because if you drive around Bozeman, you know what that question will be.

Answering the phones tonight, Sherry Kloss and Cheryl Bennett.

You can wave at the people, and thank you for coming.

The phone number for the questions will be up in no time at all, and get them busy.

They sit there and don't do anything, they get bored.

So get the phone a-ringing.

Andrea, tell us a little bit about the program that you're involved with, the Department of Agriculture.

- Yeah.

So I am the Produce Safety Coordinator for the Produce Safety Program at the Department of Ag.

And one major component of our program is, we provide education, outreach, and technical assistance to produce growers in Montana, so in the form of trainings, resources, any kind of assistance that we can provide to help them out with implementing safer practices on their farm to increase produce safety.

- Okay.

So that brings up a subject.

I mean, farmers' markets in Montana have just exploded.

Almost every little town has a farmers' market.

Have you worked with farmers' markets to help ensure safety of a lot of the products that are sold there?

- We typically work directly with the growers themselves, the farms.

So they will attend our grower trainings, contact us with questions.

But occasionally we do get out to the farmers' markets as well.

We have a produce licensing program.

So anyone that sells produce in Montana is required to have a produce license.

The smaller growers that sell less than $25,000 per year, their license is a fee exempt license that is free to them obviously.

And then, those that are over 25,000, it's a $50 license per year.

- So that's a pretty good size figure.

How many over 25,000 producers do we have in the state of Montana?

- I'm gonna estimate and say we probably have around 500 plus total produce farms in the state.

But as far as the ones that are a little bit bigger where they may need to do compliance with both our produce licensing and then also the Produce Safety Program that I manage, we're looking at maybe over 100, 100, 150 farms.

Yeah.

- A pretty good sized industry in the state.

No doubt about it.

- It is growing, yeah.

- Okay.

I'm gonna to shift over to Abi, and the question comes from Bozeman, about 50 of 'em.

And we had a little snowstorm last week.

And if you drive around Bozeman and, I'm sure, other cities around Bozeman have had heavy snow, you find a lot of trees that have been damaged, and there's at least a dozen people who wanna know what they can do to take care of these damaged trees.

- Yeah, that's a really timely question right now, and a lot of central Montana and then various other pockets got a significant amount of snowfall.

And so, if you are driving around and you're seeing this damage or if it's on your property, the first thing that you wanna do is be safe.

So you don't wanna walk underneath a tree that could have potential structural damage.

Take a look at the canopy of the tree.

Make sure that there aren't any branches that are teetering or snapped and haven't dropped yet.

It's very dangerous to do this without being aware of your surroundings.

If you have a smaller manageable-sized tree and you're seeing snapped branches, it is a good time right now to clean those up.

So remove any dangling, broken branches so that you leave a nice flat edge.

Don't leave serrated, torn and shredded bark that is clinging onto the edges of branches.

So try and remove any broken branches to the main lateral branch and/or up to the trunk, giving a nice smooth pruning cut.

Don't apply any pruning paints.

If it's a large branch and you need to get on a ladder to get there, I would recommend reaching out to an expert to do that who have the appropriate tools.

So that would be an ISA or an International Society for Arboriculture certified arborist.

Reach out to a professional arborist to help you tackle some of those jobs that are beyond your scope.

So what had happened was, when we have issues with trees that haven't dropped all their leaves yet, when snow falls, and especially a significant amount of snow, there is a significantly higher amount of weight that those branches have to handle, which means more bending and breaking.

In the future, while we still have a lot of trees that have leaves, if you have more snowfall, gently remove some of those branches with a broom, something like that, without vigorously shaking them and snapping them, to reduce the load as the snow continues to accumulate to reduce this damage in the future.

- Thank you.

Shelley, did you have a lot of snow up in Glasgow?

- We actually didn't get any snow at all in Glasgow.

They did to the west of us though, quite a bit.

- Okay.

I will attest to what you say.

I sent my property manager out with a broom.

That's my wife.

(panel laughing) I get in trouble when I say that.

But she knocked it off maple trees, and young maple trees are really susceptible.

They're soft wood at this time of year, and you will see a lot of maples that have had some damage.

We survived without any damage.

Thank you to my wife.

- I just wanna pitch in, as we were talking about pruning, and we covered that already, fall sanitation, but as you're trimming around your trees, be sure to clean your equipment in between trees.

That pruning is a time when we introduce pathogens.

There were a lot of healthy branches that got really damaged, but in my backyard, it's especially the diseased branches that had an issue.

So as you're cutting that, be aware that this is a way you could spread pathogens and issues.

So make sure you clean your equipment in between.

- [Jack] Okay.

Thank you.

- [Abi] What do you use to clean it with?

- Yeah, you could use ethanol or some bleach solution, based on what your instruments are and what they can tolerate.

So your standard kind of disinfectants that you have in your house are good.

- Even those household disinfectant sprays end up working.

They're really convenient.

I see a lot of arborists having a little holster for their disinfectant spray.

- Yeah, cool.

- Okay.

Thank you.

One thing that county agents do that I've always been impressed with is nitrate testing.

And for those people that are not familiar with feed, if it's harvested at the wrong time, it can have some significant nitrate toxicity to livestock.

So one of the things that county agents do around the state is sample feedstock to see whether or not, after a frost event and so forth and so on, there's a nitrate level.

So we're gonna show you that test tonight before we go back to some food safety.

So, Kelly, have at it.

Tell us what you're doing here.

- Okay.

So this is a hay probe.

So this is the business end.

This is the end that you use to drill into the round part of the bale.

And this end is where you put your cordless drill.

And you will wanna go through and take a couple of samples, and then this pushes the hay back out of the probe.

You collect it into a bag, and this is what it'll look like.

It's kind of a shredded precut.

You can also bring in a sample of the plant itself, and then I would cut it up.

What I do is I cut it up into small pieces, and then I bake it in the oven at about 250 degrees for about two hours and make it super dry.

And then I run it through a coffee grinder and just grind it up as fine as I can.

And you measure out one gram, which I already have done.

So this is one gram.

- [Jack] Don't spill, and don't smoke it either.

- No, you didn't want to.

- Nobody sneeze.

Hold your breath.

- This actually is Sudan grass with a little bit of alfalfa mixed into it.

I just brought it because that's what I had in the office.

But oats, barley, hay, any of those grassy things, millet, they can accumulate those nitrates.

So I have 100 milliliters of water in here.

I'm just gonna add that ground up material, and then I shake it for 30 seconds, and then I let it sit for 10 minutes.

And we're going to go ahead and do that.

And then, later on in the program, what we'll do is we'll run this strip test to find out how much is in it.

And I'd like to say that the Custer County agent and Megan Van Emon from Fort Keogh is our beef specialist there, and they worked really hard to bring this to agents so that we could provide this locally out of our offices, for free, for anybody who's interested in knowing if they have nitrates in their forages.

Now, alfalfa's usually not a problem, but it's mostly those grasses.

And oats by far and away is the worst.

- I always though Sudan grass was right up there.

- Sudan grass can be, yes.

And it also has prussic acid too, which is a whole nother story that I probably won't go into tonight.

- So, Shelley, why is it important to know about the nitrates in your forage?

- Excellent.

So if the nitrates are too high, then it causes toxicity to cattle and other livestock.

So as you know, when plants go through the day, they kinda utilize that nitrogen.

But overnight, that nitrogen will accumulate.

So a lot of times we'll tell people, "Don't cut your hay first thing in the morning, because that's when your nitrates are the highest."

You wanna wait till about 11 o'clock in the afternoon.

And then, also if you have a wheat crop that has failed, you've gone through all the trouble of fertilizing that crop and everything.

Let's say either it was droughted out, or it was hailed out, or it had too much rain, something like that.

Anytime that plant is stressed, those nitrates can accumulate in there.

And the other thing about nitrates is, once they're there, that's it.

When you cut the plant, that's how much nitrates are always gonna be there.

And so, it can be really dangerous for your cattle.

- I agree.

Yeah.

We always have a few issues with nitrate poisoning in the state.

Andrea, this person from Manhattan wants to know, if they buy produce at, say, a farmers' market or directly from a grower, how do they know it's safe?

- Yeah.

I mean, it's a good thing to really interact with that farmer and ask them, "What are your food safety practices on your farm?

Do you have a food safety plan?"

That's a really good indicator that they actually have something spelled out with some really important information.

You can ask them if they participate in a food safety audit program.

Some of the bigger farms in Montana do.

And I mean, if they're near you and they would be open to it, you can certainly ask if they would be willing to let you on their farm as well.

That can be helpful too.

- When you say education for, say, vegetable safety, what are you trying to prevent or what are you concerned about?

- Yeah.

So basically, we are trying to prevent pathogens from getting onto the produce.

So any kind of bacteria, parasites, any viruses, any of those things that get onto the produce is what can make us sick.

So that's what causes a foodborne illness that we hear about in the news.

We're hearing a lot about those.

But yeah, that's what makes us sick.

- We've had a significant amount of that in the press over the past couple years, so forth and so on.

- Does your program also offer testing to test for the presence of pathogens?

- No, because the main goal of the Produce Safety Program is to prevent the produce from becoming contaminated in the first place.

Certainly there are tests that are available that you can do, and it's important to test your water.

Your water is a good indicator of what might be in your water.

That's the part you can test.

But the actual produce itself is a lot harder to test.

And the idea there is just to really keep it from having any kind of pathogens on it in the first place.

That's a good question.

- While you're up, I have a question for you in a minute.

But before we do that, I neglected to use a visual at the start of the program talking about Ag Week here in Montana.

So if I can get the production room to talk about Celebrate Ag Week, that's coming up at the end of the month.

And I hate to say this, but I go to that every year because it's a lot of fun.

You meet a lot of people that you may not see around the state very often.

So it's, I think, October 25th through November 1.

A lot of activities here on campus, some banquets, some seminars.

If you're at all interested, go online, look up Ag Week, and I encourage you to attend.

It's a lot of fun, and I tell you, it's also very educational.

And you can meet people like this on campus.

I mean, Uta, you wanna give out your office number so they can come visit you?

- Well, why don't you come to the Plant Science Building and find my office?

(panel laughing) Make it a fresher hunt.

- Okay.

(panel laughing) Back to Andrea.

This caller wants to know how many of the home growers are growing vegetables in greenhouses, and are vegetables grown in greenhouses more prone to problems than vegetables that are produced outside?

- That's a really good question.

We are seeing a rise in greenhouse production, absolutely, and there's a lot of different types of greenhouse production.

With hydroponic production, you actually don't have soil.

And so, you don't have that soil contact.

And in greenhouses in general, you just don't have those environmental factors that can bring in a lot of the higher risks, the pathogens that can come from the outside.

So in some ways, yes, they can be less prone to contamination.

However, you also have that handling aspect as well.

You have a lot of workers that are gonna handle that produce in the packaging of it, and that's where we really need to be thoughtful of if those workers are trained and they know what they're doing to reduce risk there as well.

- There's a perception that if you go to a farmers' market, what you buy is healthier than what you might buy in a grocery store.

Is that true?

- Healthier?

That's a hard one to say.

I don't know if I can speak to the nutritional aspect of it per se.

- Well, or just safety-wise.

- But yes, safety-wise.

So, possibly.

I think it's really important to make a distinction.

Organic produce has a lot of really... Certified organic produce.

We have a program within the Montana Department of Ag where they go out and certify those farms, and they can use that label that says their produce is organic.

And some of the main components of that program, I won't speak too much to it 'cause I don't know all the fine details.

But we're really talking about pesticides and synthetic fertilizer use.

So if those are things that you're really feeling like that's important to you in your nutrition and food safety aspect there, then that's good.

But I wouldn't say it directly correlates to the safety of the produce, if it's gonna have pathogens or not.

- And one of those plugs for the farmers' markets and stuff, and anywhere that sources local produce, is that produce is gonna be fresh and closer to its peak ripeness, which means it's going to taste better than when it's harvested earlier.

- Absolutely.

- I'll buy that.

Okay.

Uta, a couple things.

Number one, quickly, this person from Billings notes that a lot of the nurseries, so forth and so on in the Billings area are promoting fungicides for lawns.

Do you think that's really necessary?

This caller would like to know.

- I mean, it's always a depends thing, and I always recommend that we first diagnose the problem and then go from there.

I mean, generally speaking, more of the lawn issues that we have in Montana, and Abi can speak to that as well, are abiotic rather than caused by a disease, so... But that's why I would say I'd rather diagnose it first before we talk about treatment options.

And then there's always a lot of things that we can do in our practices around watering, and mowing, and fertilization that can be as effective and probably a lot cheaper than applying a fungicide.

So there's a lot to consider here.

- Yeah.

And oftentimes those practices like irrigating early in the morning so the water has time to absorb and evaporate off the leaves can help.

And even with those disease issues, if you don't address those cultural practices, like those lawn care practices, they're gonna keep happening over and over.

- So since we're into food safety and you are up, and you have what appears to be a high-quality potato in front of you, would you like to tell people what's going on with that potato, and what would happen if you ate that potato?

- Okay.

Well, so for those who didn't recognize that, these are just cut pieces of potatoes that came to us in the diagnostic lab.

And so, I brought these in to show you an example of what is a pretty common storage disease you might observe in potatoes.

This one in particular is a dry rot caused by a fungal pathogen called Fusarium.

There's actually different species that cause that.

So the symptoms are, as you can see here, you kind of have these shriveled brown areas that are starting to sink in.

They also extend so over time they will get bigger and bigger.

And if you cut into the tuber, you will see that discoloration go into the center.

It's called dry rot really because if you touch it, it's not really mushy, soft.

It is really just a dry rot.

So this is a classic storage disease, and it usually happens when we injure our tubers during harvest and handling.

It just creates wounds that pathogens move into, and Fusarium is one of those that's just everywhere.

So it's just waiting for an opportunity.

And then, it can be promoted by improper storage conditions.

So you probably know that, after you harvest your potatoes, you wanna cure them at moderate temperatures, in high humidity, and then afterwards you wanna... And the curing helps thicken the skin and heal the wounds that occur during harvest.

So that's an important step.

And then afterwards, you wanna store them at cool temperatures and in the darkness, and that also helps prevent disease spread.

I don't know why anybody would wanna eat a potato that looks like that.

I don't recommend.

Why don't we just not try and find out what happens if you eat that?

So I would say, discard these potatoes, do not eat them.

Check your pile if you have others that are symptomatic and remove them.

Also, do not use these tubers to start your next year's crop.

That would just perpetuate the problem.

We always, always recommend to use certified disease-free seed pieces, which you can get in gardening centers, et cetera.

- Okay.

So no potato soup out of those?

- No, nope.

Just let them go.

- All right.

I agree with you entirely.

Everybody's probably noticed we have jugs of honey on the table.

And I'm told that out of Fort Peck, there's a kind of a pollinator honey project ongoing where it's a demonstration project.

And I think you wanna talk about that a little bit, and we might get into safety of honey too.

And then, we have a picture of Abi in some of her finest dress that we'll show here in a little bit.

So Shelley, tell us a little bit about your project out there with honey.

- Sure.

So in collaboration with the US Army Corps of Engineers, we have developed a 23-acre pollinator garden.

Right now we have about seven, maybe not quite seven, maybe about five acres that we've developed into a mesic, meaning it uses water out of the Missouri River, where we have planted over 250 different species of plants, such that everything will bloom, or something will be in bloom throughout the entire season so that the pollinators can come.

And then I got a grant, instructional innovation grant, to build a beekeeping learning laboratory to teach people how to keep bees.

And part of that, we get an extraction workshop.

We teach people how to get the honey, how to pull the frames, and how to extract the honey out of the frames and how to bottle it.

And so, I brought some of that honey along here.

And we invite Abi up every year, we've done it for two years in a row for a week, to come and spend a wonderful week learning all about pollinators, and plant and pollinator interactions, and play with bees.

- Absolutely.

- So if I can get the control room to bring up a picture of Abi holding a bee or two, it's kind of funny.

I told you, that's one fine outfit that she's wearing.

And my first question was, did you get stung?

- No.

And it was because I was wearing that really great bee suit that protected my skin and my hair from bees getting close to it.

So Shelley had all the gear for me to get all dressed up and safely help clean their awesome observation hive that they have over there.

And it's one of my favorite workshops that I get to participate in every year.

And so, it's lovely to see the enthusiasm is growing and people are interested in learning more about pollinators and what Shelley and the Army Corps of Engineers there have built together, this really amazing resource of learning.

And it's just wonderful to see it take flight and buzz with excitement, and all the other puns.

- Absolutely, yeah.

- Okay.

Do we inspect honey, or is there any issues with honey that's sold?

That may be a dumb question, but I ask a lot of dumb questions.

- There is an apiary department in the Montana Department of Ag, and they have a number of different types of beekeeping licenses, I think, or their regulatory program regulates the different entities differently, whether you're a hobbyist or a commercial beekeeper.

And so, they do work with those beekeepers.

They don't test the honey, inspect the honey itself though.

- This may be another dumb question, but have you made any mead out of your honey?

- I have not.

I've made wine out of my grapes, but I have not made mead yet.

- Well, we have Larry Robinson on with the wine and grape growers next week.

We'll ask him if anybody in the state is making mead.

We are a large producer of honey.

We're one of the top 10 producers.

- [Shelley] We're one of the top five.

- Top five now.

And my question is, you can't answer because I've told you this before, but I'll ask everybody else, what is the number one producing honey state in the United States?

- North Dakota.

- You're right.

You were here when I asked that before.

- No, no.

- She knows a thing or two.

- I know a thing about bees.

- She's the queen bee.

(panel laughing) - Yeah.

It's over 38 million pounds of honey is produced in North Dakota, which is pretty amazing.

From Anis.

"Uta, this caller has a greenhouse and plants the first crop of sugar snap peas in the spring, and they say they turn out perfect.

The second crop usually devolves white dust on them.

The peas are not as good from the second crop.

What is the white dust, and is it toxic?"

- Well, that sounds like it's probably powdery mildew.

I was gonna go with another name, but powdery mildew, if you say white dust.

So if you can wipe it off your leaf, it comes off pretty easy, it's probably powdery mildew.

It's a common foliar disease.

It just likes moisture.

I don't think it's toxic, but I mean... Okay, so powdery mildew is one of those pathogens who actually keeps the leaves or the plants alive in a way, it keeps its host alive, but it still occupies leaf area which the plant needs to do photosynthesis and basically produce the sugars and other nutrients that go into a pea, so it will have an impact on your crop.

Is it toxic?

I am not aware that it is, but again, why would you eat a white powdery pea?

It's like, just don't do that.

- Food safety.

- Yeah.

Just common sense, okay?

- That brings about a point.

Attractiveness of food is a big issue, whether you're in a grocery store or a farmers' market.

If it's a blemished food, it's probably still safe enough to eat.

However, people will avoid that.

How do you prevent some of this blemishing?

And this is a tough question, but I'm gonna throw it out there for you guys to hassle over.

I guess I get no answer.

- Well, I'll chime in for the insect side of things, for example.

I get that question a lot.

There are a lot of insect pests that can feed on your produce, and insect-damaged produce, for example, is usually pretty safe to eat.

But we would worry if the insect has damaged the produce enough that preserving it, it may not preserve as well as it would have if intact.

That's when it can be an issue.

So usually when there's insects involved, I usually like to tell people, "Embrace the extra protein, and maybe cut out the insect piece if you don't wanna eat it."

But that's not gonna harm you, in terms of a disease end of things.

- Yeah.

I think with diseases, it's again, it depends on what it is, right?

There are diseases that are causing blemish, but they also are just a problem long-term to the productivity of a fruit tree or whatever other produce.

There is a lot of abiotic conditions that can also cause blemishes that are per se not problematic, but again, some things like injuries introduce just an opportunity for other things to move in that might be more harmful.

I'd also say that I think, through going to grocery stores, we've been kind of conditioned to look for the perfect apple, the perfect produce, and that maybe kind of relaxing those standards a little bit and being okay with a spot on an apple or something like that might actually give you an opportunity to try a variety that you don't find in a grocery store.

I mean, I'm not saying those varieties have spots.

But I just actually heard a news blip in a podcast this week where they were talking about an effort, I think at the East Coast, where they're just trying to discover and trace back all these different apple varieties that they used to grow and have come out of fashion because we are so drilled to eat those five varieties we get in the store, and that there's a huge diversity in what they look like and what they taste like, and they don't all look like your standard perfect, whichever, gala or whatever you prefer in the store.

And so, I got all excited.

I was like, I gotta try all these different apples.

They sound really interesting.

- And we got into that with some little crab apples.

I don't remember what the variety was.

- The Kerr.

- Yeah, Kerr crab apple, which is really a tasty crab apple.

- [Shelley] Really good, yeah.

- All right.

This is an interesting question, and I wanna throw this one to Shelley.

This caller said they watched a program on PBS Impact this morning that was talking about PFAS chemicals, poly something or other chemicals.

- [Uta] Forever chemicals.

- And they indicated on that program that the water and fish out of Fort Peck Reservoir are over the parts per limit that you want to eat 'em.

So the question this person has, "Has that caused an issue in Valley County or Glasgow, since you're right next to Fort Peck?"

- You know, this is really the first I've heard of it.

To be honest with you, I didn't realize that there were forever chemicals in our fish.

I do know that we have a huge fishing industry, Governor's Cup walleye tournament, and the salmon fishing.

A lot of that is catch and release, but they do sometimes do a fish fry.

So I'm sorry I can't answer that question.

Stumped the agent.

- I saw the same program this morning, and if you can believe the chemistry, they say, do not eat fish from Fort Peck.

- Really?

- Yeah.

They're that high in forever chemicals.

Now, I'm sure, if you do it in moderation, it's probably okay.

But it's a report that just came out within the last year, I believe.

So anyway, enough of that.

I'm gonna eat my walleye and fried catfish.

Yeah, definitely.

From Manhattan, this person has a huge garden and they're thinking of selling some of the produce at farmers' market.

Is that an issue, or do they need to be certified or checked to do so?

- I mentioned in my introduction about the licensing program.

So anyone that is selling, wanting to sell produce in the state of Montana does need to get a produce license.

And it would either be, if you're just starting out small, it's gonna be a fee-exempt license.

You do have to renew it each year, but I would start with that.

And then, contact your sanitarian.

anytime you're wanting to sell a food of any kind, whether it's produce or something else, it's a really good idea to see if there's other regulations that the sanitarian would be aware of, especially if you're trying to prepare your food, even produce, if you start to cut it up.

That could affect the way that it's regulated too, doing things like that.

So those are the main things.

And then, with the Produce Safety Program, we just ask that they go onto our website and fill out the form that will help them determine if they're subject to the produce safety rule.

- Okay.

Thank you.

Uta, a quick one here.

Person, a caller from Power, Montana, north of Great Falls wants to know, they've had some moisture.

Is it too late to put a winter wheat crop in, in your opinion?

- I mean, I think you can still do that, but I actually have to admit, I haven't looked at the forecast.

The window is getting short for that to come up, but definitely, I'd say, take advantage of the moisture.

- In all honesty, the best wheat crop I ever saw in the state when I was gainfully employed last century, a long time ago, was at Park City.

And the person seeded that with a hybrid variety a day after Thanksgiving on sugar beet ground, and it produced 156 bushels per acre.

So I think you can still get it in.

- It all depends on how this fall progresses.

And actually, you say, "Make it short, Uta," but then you gave me the mic, so here I am.

I would have been more concerned this year about people planting rather early, like in early September, because we had quite widespread wheat streak mosaic disease issues.

And so, green bridge and warm temperatures really promote this disease to perpetuate into the next crop.

So I think later planting, particularly this year, is a good idea.

So go for it.

- So I see Shelley has this thing.

Are we ready to test it?

- [Shelley] 10 more minutes.

- 10 more minutes?

Don't let me forget.

At my age, I do forget quite a little bit of things.

I'm not sure we can answer this, but I'll throw it out.

Caller is wondering if Montana is still the number one producer of mustard seed.

I don't know if we are or not.

I know we produce a lot, but I can't say we're the number one producer.

I will put a plugin for a little business out at (indistinct) called Living Sky Farms, and they produce a lot of mustard seed out there.

It's high quality.

So if you like local produce, here's an opportunity to get it.

I like this one for Uta.

It says it was for me, but I'm not gonna take it.

(panel laughing) "Is it possible generally for a plant to be asymptomatic even though it is infected with a disease?"

- I mean, let's see.

So there's always that latent period where it's kind of already infected but it hasn't shown symptoms yet.

And then the other element is, there are diseases that are kind of undercover, like your root rot, for example, might take quite a while to show up and express symptoms above ground that you will recognize.

And then, other things like virus diseases, they might be cryptic, look like a lot of other stuff, or is so subtle that it's really hard to notice.

So yes and no.

- And sometimes, don't we even select for some of those viruses?

For example, we select plants because they have those attractive kind of color variations.

- Oh, that's a good though.

Yeah, like all the tulips and stuff like that.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Yeah, that true.

- Okay, we have a couple questions coming up we'll get to in a minute, but I wanna throw this one at Shelley.

This person wants to know a little bit more about vacationing in the Glasgow and Highline area.

So I beat on people a lot that they need to get out of their Western zip codes.

- Sure, sure.

Well, unfortunately, we just lost the Fort Peck Hotel.

They closed, which was very disappointing.

It was a historic hotel that was built in the 1930s, and it was a lot of fun to stay there.

But we have a whole bunch of Airbnbs there, and the Kiwanis Park, which, lots and lots and lots of camping availability on core property, and really nice bathrooms.

So vacationing, yes, do come to Northeast Montana.

- There's some great restaurants too.

I feel like I've tried not all of them yet, but yeah.

- Can I plug Eugene's Pizza?

- Sure.

- Number one pizza place in Montana, in the Garden- - And you didn't bring any?

- [Shelley] I'm sorry.

- Did you mention that the garden is also open to the public?

- I did not.

It is.

It's absolutely open to the public, as well as the Interpretive Center, the Fort Peck Interpretive Center, that it's there.

And they also give dam tours, which are very cool.

- I have actually been to the Interpretive Center at Fort Peck, and it is fun.

I mean, the history of Fort Peck in itself is pretty amazing.

And for people that haven't seen the special on PBS, maybe they'll have it, run it again.

They usually run it once a year.

But it's really a fascinating story how it came about.

And there was a whole town of Fort Peck that were, I think, many thousands of people during the construction.

- Absolutely.

And many parts of Fort Peck are still there, including the Fort Peck Theater, which does theater all summer long.

Amazing acting.

And the old Wheeler is there.

Of course, the old side of Fort Peck is actually underwater.

- Water, yeah.

There's a great park there for camping, right, adjacent to the park, and you can have barbecues there.

It's a neat place.

I like that part of the country.

First of all, there's not as many people out there.

- [Uta] Well, that might change after tonight's show.

(panel laughing) - Okay.

Andrea, and we may have answered this, but it may have gotten by me.

Where do growers get the license to sell produce at a farmers' market?

- Yeah, so you can apply for the license online.

There is a very simple form you fill out.

And just, for growers that are under 25,000, that's a free license.

- [Jack] But you should get a free license?

- Yes.

Everyone that's selling produce should have a license.

- Okay.

Thank you.

While I have you up, this caller noticed that some grocery stores put whole cantaloupe in refrigerators and some stores keep them at room temperature.

Is there a reason why they differ, and do cantaloupes need to be refrigerated?

- I don't see a reason.

I mean, it certainly could increase the shelf life if they are keeping it refrigerated.

I don't think it's a requirement necessarily.

But I think once you have refrigerated it, taking it in and out of refrigeration might not be the best idea.

And certainly, once it's cut, that would be the time to go ahead and refrigerate it.

- My taste buds aren't the greatest in the world, but a cold cantaloupe is not as good as a warm cantaloupe.

There's no doubt about that.

Freshly cut cantaloupe.

And I can mention it here, a Dixon melon from Dixon, Montana, fresh, before it's been refrigerated, you won't find a better cantaloupe anywhere in the country.

They've gotten a little smarter.

They charge a little more money for 'em now.

But honestly, they're worth every penny that they have.

Shelley, you're involved with 4-H, correct?

- A bit, yes.

- A bit?

Are you having trouble in Glasgow getting volunteers?

And if not, what's your secret in Valley County to getting volunteers?

(panel laughing) - So this must be from another agent, right?

(panel laughing) - [Jack] Probably.

- So we actually have an amazing set of volunteers, and I just can't say enough about how amazing the 4-H program is, and we wouldn't have that program if it wasn't for the volunteers.

And I think just being good to your volunteers and telling them how much you appreciate them, and not overworking them is probably a really good thing.

We put 'em through a lot, but they keep coming back, and I just am so appreciative of all of those people that are involved in it.

- Post COVID, statewide, we had an issue getting volunteers.

Has that kind of rectified itself?

- I think we're still working on it.

We would like to have more volunteers.

There's never a wealth of volunteers, and a lot of people end up doing the more and more and more.

But I think, yeah, I still see that there's some delinquency with volunteerism since COVID.

- If you like young people, volunteer.

There's no doubt about it.

I've never volunteered, but I know people who have, and it's very, very rewarding according to these individuals.

We got a little box of something there.

What is that?

I've been sitting here looking at it and I'm kinda curious, who's gonna talk about that?

- So I'll start, since it's my bug.

(panel laughing) - [Jack] You're not an entomologist, so you don't have pet bugs, right?

- Yeah, that's right.

It's not my insect though.

So I ordered some equipment from a company in Pennsylvania, and when it arrived, I found two of these insects on it, and they are a spotted lanternfly, which is an invasive species that's moving across the United States.

I think it's a little further west than Pennsylvania now, but they are horrifically... They eat everything.

They have a preferred host, which is the- - Tree of heaven.

- Tree of heaven.

That's it, yes.

But they will eat grapes, and they will eat any kind of produce really.

And they're just going to be a real nasty bugger.

So I'm trying to just raise the awareness of people that this is moving across, much like the emerald ash borer that we have that's moving across.

But it was surprising to me to open up my package and find these.

And I called the company and I said, "Thank God they're dead, but you need to be aware that this is an invasive species, and don't be spreading it across the United States."

- Good point.

Yeah.

I do worry about all these insects moving here.

Although, I'm kind of optimistic that maybe our environment is not as favorable for something like the lanternfly, although Pennsylvania can get plenty cold.

There's no doubt about that.

- [Uta] And our environment is changing too.

- It's changing.

- Good point.

- So hopefully this is a one time occurrence, although that's wishful thinking.

But so, if you were to observe a suspicious insect or other specimen, contacting your local extension agent, like Shelley, would be a great first step to get identification support and then figure out what to do from here.

In this case, Shelley, if I remember correctly, you were working with the diagnostic lab and confirming that.

And because it is a pest of concern, we did get the Department of Ag involved too, who were basically providing the response plan here.

Since it was dead, not much had to be done.

But yeah, think of your extension agents across the state and the Schutter Diagnostic Lab as resources to help with identification and managing pests of concern or suspected pests of concern.

- And then yeah, don't move materials across state lines without properly inspecting them, and especially anything that could harbor pests.

In this case, this was an unfortunate circumstance, but oftentimes when people are moving wood, that's an issue with some of those wood boring pests too.

- Okay.

We're about ready, but I've got one question before you jump in.

How does the public learn about produce safety?

- Yeah.

So you can go to our website.

It's agr.mt.gov, and you can navigate to the Produce Safety Program's page from there.

And we have a wealth of information about different resources you can learn, if you need to comply with this produce safety rule, that's out there.

And then you can get our contact information there as well.

- Okay.

So Shelley, the drum roll.

(Jack imitating drum roll) - So now I am going to use this nitrate test strip, which just has two tiny little pads on it.

And you just swish it in there for about two seconds, and then you wait a minute, and it will show a color.

If there's no color, that means there's no nitrates in it.

The more pink it is, the more nitrates there are in that.

One thing I forgot to mention is that when you use the water, you have to test the water too to make sure that there's no nitrates in the water, because that will screw up your test.

But I had done this one before and there are no nitrates in this sample, which is great.

It's safe for all classes of livestock to feed on.

- It's great to know that our water doesn't have the nitrate either.

- Yeah, that is nice.

- So assuming that you have, say, minor pink coloration, and you have 25 tons of that hay or Sudan grass chopped up as silage, or whatever it is, what do you do with that?

- That's a really great question.

So the first thing that I would do is, if I had a suspect sample, I would send it off to the laboratory for quantitative analysis to find out how much is actually in it, and then they will give us a recommendation as to say, okay, you have this much nitrate, so you need to feed one bale of this to two bales of non-nitrate feed.

Now also, if you have nitrates in your well water, your drinking water for your cattle or livestock, that's gonna exacerbate that nitrate samples or nitrate toxicity.

So you have to be aware of both of those things.

And if you do have really high toxic levels, there's only two things you can do with it, burn it or ensile it.

If you make silage out of it, the bacteria will utilize the nitrogen and degrade it, and so, then it becomes safe to feed.

But you'll have to test it again before you start feeding it.

So that's the only way you can get rid of nitrates in a sample.

- How many nitrate tests in an average week do you run?

- It's been running about seven a week for the last several weeks.

- That's pretty impressive.

Yeah.

Okay.

- Is that a higher number than... How does this number compare to previous years?

- So it goes up every year because word gets around, "Hey, Shelley's doing nitrate samples.

It's free."

So they'll bring in their millet or their corn, or oats, barley, Sudan grass.

Yeah.

- Okay.

Carbon County.

"What is the best way to control stink bugs?"

And then I have a question with lentils for Uta.

Stink bugs, quickly.

- So I'm assuming, if you're talking about brown marmorated stink bugs, those we only have in a couple of counties, and those are the ones that come indoors.

Don't let them get indoors, seal up any cracks and crevices.

We do have a lot of native species of stinkbugs in Montana.

Those usually don't require any sort of chemical controls because they rarely do enough damage.

So I would say, first, if you have that brown-colored stink bug that has the speckled red and white spots, take that to your extension agent and get it identified to see what species it is.

If it is the brown marmorated stinkbug, that is an invasive species that we are still tracking.

We've only spotted it in, I believe, four counties so far in Montana.

So do have that identified.

And then, they come indoors to over winter, so seal up any cracks and crevices to prevent them from getting in.

- Okay.

Uta, this person from the Fort Peck area and Plentywood, farms in both places, had root rot in their lentils.

Is there a way that they can eliminate or reduce the amount of root rot they have in lentils?

- Yeah.

So the best way to reduce that is really careful crop rotation.

So depending on the causal agent, there's different pathogens that could cause that.

Aphanomyces is the most complicated pathogen that can cause root rot.

We recommend at least a three-year rotation.

But if you know you have Aphanomyces in your field, we would even say six years upwards.

The goal really is that, especially if Aphanomyces is very persistent in the soil, so it really can last there for a long time, 10 years upwards.

So the more you spread out your rotation between susceptible crops, and so, lentils and peas would be very good hosts to especially Aphanomyces, whereas your small grains, canola, even chickpeas are not as susceptible.

So the more you spread out your rotation, the slower the pathogen population will increase and reach a threshold where it really has an impact on your yield and you would potentially risk losing that field as a productive field that makes a profit.

There are some other strategies that we could talk about in detail, like planting date, use of seed treatments and stuff like that.

It's the whole thing.

I can talk about this for an hour.

- [Jack] They can call you.

- [Uta] Call me, yeah.

- Okay.

Comment from Red Lodge, and I appreciate comments like this.

Caller wants to inform folks of a new publication called Montana Sport Fish Guideline, published by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Department of Environmental Quality, and Health and Human Services, I believe.

It gives consumption guidelines for the chemicals that could be present in fish from all over Montana, but especially in Fort Peck.

- Nice.

- So people can get that, I'm sure, online.

We're getting down a little bit.

I have a couple other questions here.

From Four Corners, this person emailed this one in.

"Noticed a lot of black swollen masses on choke cherries.

What is it, and will it hurt the plant?"

- This is called black knot.

It's a fungal disease that goes on your Prunus species.

So choke cherries are a very common host for that.

So it basically girdles the branch that it sits on and will cut off the nutrient supply.

If it's severe enough, it might kill a tree.

So the best strategy, if this is something that's affecting a plant on your property as opposed to a public space, is pruning out those galls and infected branches.

We recommend doing that in the winter.

So now is probably the earliest time of year.

I'd probably wait a little bit longer.

You certainly wanna prune it out before spring starts, because in the spring, with high moisture and rain, these galls will produce spores that will spread in the wind and infect new shoots, and that's how it perpetuates.

- Okay.

I'm promoting this.

Where do you get it?

It's the IPM Counter for Gardening in Montana.

It has some great pictures of pollinator.

Since we're running a little short time, I'm not gonna show a lot of the pictures.

But I do have a question I would like to answer before we get over this program.

This person wants to know, "What is the public produce safety rule?"

I've never heard of that.

- Yeah.

It's a good question.

And you probably haven't heard of it because it's relatively new.

The produce safety rule is one of several rules within the Food Safety Modernization Act, and the Congress signed it into law about 10 years ago.

And basically, that's what my program is all about.

It's governed by FDA.

And so, FDA works with states, like ours at Department of Ag, to do both the education and outreach, as well as the inspections for those farms that have to comply, and it's all about preventing that contamination of produce.

- Okay.

So if people... You've got a website.

- [Andrea] Yep.

- If they want some education, they can come to you and you'll help educate people.

Do you use people from the university too?

- Yeah.

We do partner with them as far as resources.

We definitely will point people to folks at the university to make sure that they get the specific knowledge they need, and then we put on trainings as well.

- All right.

It's the inevitable music that says we're out of here in a few seconds.

Next week, we're gonna talk about wine production in Montana.

Larry Robinson, who is with the Wine and Grape Growers Association, will be here.

Andrea, thanks for coming down.

We appreciate it.

Shelley, it's always good to see you.

We'll see you again this week.

With that, everybody, thanks for watching.

Have a good week.

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